Re:Looking for Work After 25 Years of Octave
by anigbrowl on Wednesday February 08, 2017 @09:53PM
(#13604242)
Actually no, sorry for the lack of clarity. I was thinking more of the administrative problem for the consumer.
Like, I read a lot of news, and every news outlet I read would like me to subscribe. But while I do have couple of subscriptions, and if I was a bit better off I'd throw down for a few more, but if I were to buy a subscription to every outlet that I read 1 or more articles a month from then not only would it get expensive, it would generate an annoyingly large number of renewable transactions. I don't want 30 different subscriptions, especially when I might read a publication frequently for several months and then take a break from it for a similar period. I really like the journalism at The Atlantic for example but I haven't gone to their website for maybe 6 months; in this febrile political climate I've been reading more instant news and a bit less analysis/longitudinal work.
As you say I don't much care to pull out the credit card for a small amount, but I'll make smallish one-off purchases when I find something cool. What I'd like would be that I pay some fixed amount like $25/month and someone else takes care of distributing it approximately proportionate to where I spent my attention.
When book/magazine stores were more popular I used to buy a lot of magazines because I could go to one place and get a wide variety but not necessarily always the same ones every month. But it was only one or two financial transactions with a single vendor, the magazine store. This was more expensive than subscriptions, but more flexible plus I didn't get nearly as much junk mail. I hate marketing and when you buy magazine subscriptions you get swamped with it.
Like, I read a lot of news, and every news outlet I read would like me to subscribe. But while I do have couple of subscriptions, and if I was a bit better off I'd throw down for a few more, but if I were to buy a subscription to every outlet that I read 1 or more articles a month from then not only would it get expensive, it would generate an annoyingly large number of renewable transactions. I don't want 30 different subscriptions, especially when I might read a publication frequently for several months and then take a break from it for a similar period. I really like the journalism at The Atlantic for example but I haven't gone to their website for maybe 6 months; in this febrile political climate I've been reading more instant news and a bit less analysis/longitudinal work.
As you say I don't much care to pull out the credit card for a small amount, but I'll make smallish one-off purchases when I find something cool. What I'd like would be that I pay some fixed amount like $25/month and someone else takes care of distributing it approximately proportionate to where I spent my attention.
When book/magazine stores were more popular I used to buy a lot of magazines because I could go to one place and get a wide variety but not necessarily always the same ones every month. But it was only one or two financial transactions with a single vendor, the magazine store. This was more expensive than subscriptions, but more flexible plus I didn't get nearly as much junk mail. I hate marketing and when you buy magazine subscriptions you get swamped with it.